


I'll stop running for you...

by fate_incomplete



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fate_incomplete/pseuds/fate_incomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor had meant to find Jack earlier than this. Younger, less broken, but this was where the TARDIS had taken him...He only wanted to say goodbye, but it ended up so much more complicated than that. The Doctor and Jack find each other briefly, before being torn apart by the events at Lake Silencio. Jack tries to drown his grief with anger, while the Doctor keeps running.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll stop running for you...

Fingers fumbled, numb, nerve endings unresponsive. Hands shook violently, three attempts to enter the right combination. Sight blurred, higher brain function shutting down. Several numbing breaths to realise the lights on the panel were all green, and to hit the button to activate the final command. 

The rush of frozen air from the jammed airlock lessened, as the inner door finally closed, leaving him on the wrong side. Ice particles swirled, stinging eyes, clinging to skin. If it was even possible, the temperature dropped further, beyond human endurance.

Muscles locked, pain seared, joints resisting, despite stubborn determination. Sheer will power forced feet to move. Eyes locked on the door, so close, a million miles away. Knees gave way, more pain as they met the grated floor, blood barely oozing, heart barely beating.

Eight seconds until oxygen vented. Nine steps, and one door latch between safety and death.

Screaming with one last effort, wasting oxygen, but firing senses to alertness. One more stumbled step, collapsing, crawling. 

Three seconds, four steps. So close, a million miles.

Oxygen low, breath freezing, muscles no longer responding. Eyes still locked on the door, noting with one last, half formed thought...life support to the station restored...they were saved.

The air stilled, last of the thin atmosphere in the airlock vented.

Eyes closed, consciousness lost, heart beat its last.

Oblivion, not for the first, nor last time....

...he woke with a gasp of air, body jerking back to life, not for the first, nor last time. 

"You saved them," a voice said from somewhere to his side. "They thought you were dead."

The face, the voice, was unfamiliar. The blue box standing in the corner wasn't. 

"I was."

Jack looked around. He was in a morgue, again. It was full of warmth compared to the airlock, the emptiness inside of him growing colder though.

Silence for a moment, while he studied this new version of the man he had known.

The Doctor finally looked at him. So much was different, so much wasn't. Probably never enough difference for the Doctor to ever accept him. The coldness inside of him deepened further.

Jack rolled off the slab, feet sure, heart unsteady. He spared the Doctor one last glance, old eyes, meeting old eyes, both in bodies belying their age.

Jack walked out, refusing to look back.

A whispered, "Jack...I'm sorry," followed him. 

A crack formed in the coldness...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He had meant to find Jack earlier than this. Younger, less broken, but this was where the TARDIS had taken him. The Doctor studied Jack as he waited for him to wake, to come back to life. All those years, countless deaths, had changed him. He couldn't help but wonder how many deaths this would make.

He couldn't help but feel guilt.

The Doctor had been running for almost 200 years, running from his own death, and so much more. Now it was time for one last farewell tour, one last chance to make things right.

He stepped back as Jack woke, gasping in one big breath, body jerking. Whatever plan, thoughts, words, he'd had disappeared. He didn't even know how long it had been since they last met, so said the first thing that came to mind.

"You saved them...they thought you were dead." Cursing himself for the banality of the words.

Jack stared at him for a moment, emotionless.

"I was."

The Doctor couldn't think of what to say next, wondering if this had been a bad idea. He watched numbly as Jack stood, casting one last glance at him, before turning and walking away.

"Jack...I'm sorry..."  


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He stepped out of the TARDIS to see Jack's body lying lifeless amongst debris, cursing the old girl for bringing him to another of Jack's deaths as he knelt by the body. Scanning with his sonic, it showed broken bones that even now were knitting back together. He noted that this wasn't far in Jack's future from their last meeting in the morgue.

The Doctor looked up. Half a building complex lay collapsed around the Captain's body. He had no idea what had happened, and doubted Jack would tell him when he woke. Settling on a twisted beam, he waited. Sitting still wasn't something he did well, but his guilt kept him in place.

It took thirty-eight minutes, the sharp intake of breath startling the Doctor from his thoughts.

Jack sat up, the dust that covered him drifting lazily as he brushed absently at his coat. The Doctor wondered why he was still wearing it after all this time. It took a few seconds for Jack to notice him. When he did, he smiled, though without humour.

"You again."

"Me again," the Doctor said with his own smile, equally humourless, cautious.

Jack looked around at the rubble. "Oh..." he half whispered, as if he hadn't known what had happened, what had killed him."That'll do it I guess."

Stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the Doctor's presence any further, Jack stood and walked away. The Doctor stood as well, hands awkwardly adjusting his bowtie, unsure if he should follow.

Jack picked his way through the remains of the building. He bent and picked up the remnants of some sort of alien tech. Whatever it had been, it clearly wasn't going to be functioning again anytime soon. Jack removed some part the Doctor presumed was vital and pocketed it.

Jack turned to finally look at the Doctor. Too late he saw that Jack had activated his vortex manipulator.

"Jack, wait!"

"Why?" Jack asked indifferently, before disappearing.

The Doctor sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He wondered if this whole endeavour had been selfish. Jack obviously had no desire to speak to him, let alone listen to an apology too many lifetimes too late.

He walked back to the TARDIS, sparing one glance at the remains of the building, wondering what had been inside it that Jack had died for.  


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He leant against the console, a folded piece of paper in his hands. He had spent hours trying to find some words to leave for Jack, but still had no idea what he wanted to say. He had settled on one simple line _...I'm sorry Jack, I should never have abandoned you_...He just had to find somewhere to leave it.

Taking the coward's way out, he looked for the next recorded death of Captain Jack Harkness, setting the coordinates to arrive before he woke again, not sure if he could watch Jack turn away yet again.

The TARDIS settled at his destination. He had landed in the middle of a battle between forces on a human colony. The sound of gun fire sounded as the door opened.

 _Probably should have found a better time to do this_ , he thought, smiling bitterly at the irony.

Crawling through yet more rumble, this time it seemed more like half a city had been destroyed, he found Jack's body. He paused as a patrol passed by. They gave Jack's body a cursory glance before moving on, leaving him lying broken amongst the debris. Again the Doctor wondered what Jack had been doing, what he had found to die for this time.

The Doctor was about to climb over the debris to leave his note, when Jack stirred. He stilled, watching the man who had once travelled with him wake. This time there was no gasping breath, he woke silently, alone amongst the destruction. He watched as Jack opened his eyes, breathing in and out slowly, life returning, but with none of the gusto the Doctor had once known so well.

Jack stood, watching the patrol that was now some distance away. The Doctor wondered which side Jack had been on, if any. Jack turned and walked away from the departing patrol, walking alone through the destroyed city.

The Doctor watched him leave, unable to follow, unable to move or truly think, the sight of Jack waking alone tearing at something inside of him. He had been alone for so long himself, that he thought he had grown used to it, preferred it even. Yet watching Jack disappear into the swirling dust of a broken city, opened up that gaping hole inside of him, all that loneliness and guilt he had been trying to run from.

He had turned away from Jack, left him alone, abandoned him as an abomination. Jack couldn't die, could do nothing more than go on alone, outliving who knows how many friends and lovers. A fate he hadn't asked for, that the Doctor had brought to him.

The Doctor dropped his head into his hands, overwhelmed by the thought of all Jack's deaths, wondering how many of them, like this one, had been alone.

Guilt and anger drove him to his feet. He didn't care if Jack didn't want him there, if Jack turned away every time. He would be there the next time Jack died alone, on whatever god forsaken planet. He would be there waiting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An explosion that ripped through half a mining complex, a crashed cargo ship, three gun shots, one stabbing in a seedy bar. The Doctor waited after them all, sitting by the Captain's side, waiting for him to wake, watching him glare, sometimes curse, and then walk away.

The Doctor spent weeks, maybe months, he lost track of how long, watching Jack Harkness die and come back to life. Time and time again. He watched the apathy turn to anger. He waited for some explosion of emotion in this broken man who had once been so full of life, who now could never die, yet had lost all will to live, but it didn't come.

After awhile, he had realised that Jack was seeking out ways to die, walking deliberately into danger and destruction. He watched this man he had once called a friend, destroy himself over and over, until he could stand it no more.

The Doctor arrived at a biosphere on a moon orbiting a gas giant, moments before it was destroyed by an asteroid shower, all no larger than pebbles, but big enough to weaken the structural integrity, causing life support to fail. He watched as Jack helped the last occupants into escape pods. He watched as Jack turned and walked back into the complex, standing alone, staring up at the sphere overhead as cracks formed.

Hidden within the TARDIS, the Doctor watched, and waited for Jack to die, again.

Jack slumped to his knees, stubbornly staying upright until he lost consciousness and collapsed. The Doctor expanded the field around the TARDIS to encompass Jack's lifeless body. He stood looking down at him for a moment, completely lost for ideas on how to save him, to stop the endless cycle of death.

He half carried, half dragged the larger man into the TARDIS, removing the vortex manipulator so that he would have no way out. He set the controls of the TARDIS, letting her drift in space, as he sat and waited, yet again.

It didn't take long this time. The slow intake of breath as he came back echoing in the TARDIS. The Doctor watched, unsure of what to expect, what to do, or say. He had been watching Jack die for so long, yet still had no words to say.

Jack opened his eyes, taking in the unfamiliar control room, so different to the last time he had been here. The Doctor watched as it dawned on him where he was, watched as Jack's eyes scanned the room, before finally settling on him. The Doctor held his breath, not knowing what to do, so falling into the comfort of flippancy he so often hid behind.

"You know I met a sentient asteroid once. Well, asteroid's probably not the right word. It was more of a big blobby thing floating through space. Size of a small moon. A blobby purple moon, with teeth. It wanted to eat me, well me and the TARDIS. Convinced it I wouldn't be very tasty."

Jack glared at him. The Doctor smiled benignly. It was the most words he had managed to say to the Captain in weeks. Well that he was sure Jack heard anyway. He had gotten bored several times waiting for him to come back to life and talked to his lifeless body, but he couldn't be sure Jack had actually heard any of that.

"What do you want?" Jack asked after a moment.

"Jammy dodgers and some tea. How about you?"

Jack glared again, before turning and walking to the door.

"We're floating in space, nothing out there I'm afraid...well not nothing, there's space and things..."

Jack opened the door, staring out into the void between stars.

The Doctor left Jack alone and headed to the kitchen, convincing himself that he really did want some jammy dodgers and not just a moment to think. These last, however many weeks, hadn't exactly been what he was planning when he had come to see Jack one last time before...

He heard Jack slam the door. He stopped after the first turn in the corridor, running a hand through his hair. This really had been a bad idea, but one he couldn't let go of. He turned and walked back to Jack.

"Why are you here?" Jack asked as he walked back into the control room. "Coming back each time is bad enough...but then you're there...Why watch me die? All those times."

"I meant to find you when you were younger, but the TARDIS...it was an accident at first, being there when you died, but you were so alone..."

"Alone? So many times I wanted you to be there, and you never were...Why now?"

"Because I am going to die, and I wanted...I wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye? You could have said that years ago. You selfish bastard!"

"Jack..."

"You want to know the stupid thing? After all these years, I was still waiting for you. I started to wish for death if it meant you might be there, waiting, and you were just swanning around trying to say goodbye? I spent so long wanting you, looking for you, that I don't know when it stopped being love and started to be hate. Because that's what it is now, hate."

"Jack, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? That I'm a paradox you can't stand to look at?"

"That I left you..."

"But you did, and not just once," Jack cut in angrily.

"I've left so many things broken, I just get in the TARDIS and leave you all. I wanted to make it right."

"But you can't. Can you? Do you know how many times I have died? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? So many times it has become one constant death. So many times, I don't know if there is even anything left of me anymore. I die, and I die again, there _is_ nothing else. You can't _fix_ me. There's nothing left to fix."

Jack had slowly gotten closer as he spoke, his movements full of anger.

"I don't feel anything anymore, I'm just cold and empty, but you know all about that don't you. Do you even know what it is to feel Doctor?" Jack spat the words into his face, so close now the Doctor could almost feel his warmth.

Seeing Jack walk into the arms of all those deaths, he had seen so little emotion, that he gladly took the anger, the hate. Jack may think he felt nothing anymore, but the Doctor could see so much emotion, boiling away beneath the surface, waiting to find some release.

He stared into Jack's eyes, changed but still so much the same, carrying the weight of a life too long. Something the Doctor understood all too well.

"Jack, I'm sorry, I just wanted to say goodbye."

He had only wanted to say goodbye, one last selfish act. A farewell tour to see old friends, to stave off his own demise, never thinking of what effect it would have on them. He watched as the words tipped Jack over the edge. Anger, hate, love all mixed together.

Jack reached out, one hand grabbing hold of his coat, while the other twisted in his hair, the kiss full of desperation, need and fury.

The Doctor kissed back, hard and angry. Letting Jack in like he never had anyone else. A barrage of emotion he didn't understand, and didn't want to. His fingers gripped Jack's coat, trying to shove aside the guilt and pain, the fear. Losing himself in this man he had been trying to save, selfishly trying to find his own salvation.

Jack pushed him back against the console, lips hard, hands harder as they pressed into flesh. The Doctor pushed back Jack's coat, the World War 2 coat he still somehow had after all these years. He twisted his fingers in it, a remnant of a past life, a mortal life, before the Doctor had screwed it all up, so much a part of Jack that the Doctor never wanted to let it go.

"It means nothing, none of this does," Jack ground out, hot breath caressing the Doctor's neck, before he pulled away, leaving the Doctor slumped against the console.

"Jack...stay, please," the Doctor whispered, raw and full of so much need he thought it would suffocate him, that it would destroy him.

He didn't want to just say goodbye, he wanted so much more.

They had three months together, before Jack took back his wristband, and left again. Three months were they found each other.

He stopped running for Jack, and faced whatever would happen beside a lake in Utah...he would have died for Jack, but he found another way, and maybe, just maybe, one day he would find him again. The man who couldn't die, who had seen and lost so much, who he abandoned and found again, who showed him that death wasn't always to be feared, that sometimes it would be welcome, but also that there was so much more to live for. The man who had looked into him, and understood...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The TARDIS drifted through the outer layer of the Carina Nebula as the Doctor tinkered with the old girl's circuits, adjusting and tweaking, setting off showers of sparks as he messed with the wiring.

"Ha ha, there we go!"

He looked up through the sparks, smiling excitedly as the slight flickering of the light above the console that had been bugging him for three weeks, finally righted itself. The smile didn't last though, as it never seemed to these days.

He wiped oily hands on an equally oily rag. 

"Good as new, hey old girl?" He said quietly, wishing that just once, she could answer him. 

He had been alone for so long now he rarely seemed to speak aloud, or did all too often, considering there was no one to listen. The words echoed around the TARDIS, bouncing off walls, before petering out, leaving only the gentle hum of the engines. Everything was quiet now. 

So quiet.

He tossed the tools and oily rag back in their box, gently stroking the old girls beams as he walked up the stairs. Just a boy and his box, that's all there was now. His eyes were drawn to a scarf draped around a lever. It had been there for so long now, that he couldn't bring himself to put it away. It was Amy's, one that he been left behind all those years ago. 

Amelia Pond and Rory the Roman, safe and sound back on Earth. Perhaps the one right decision he had ever made. 

He walked down the steps, and opened the doors, looking out at the nebula that surrounded the TARDIS. They would have loved this, he thought. All of them would have, all of those companions, long gone now, left behind.

The Doctor leant against the door frame, closing his eyes, the after image of the nebula swimming behind his eye lids. He let his thoughts drift, let them swirl, like the slow turn of the dust of the nebula. 

So old, so very old. 

Memories that were always so close to the surface came to him. Captain Jack Harkness, who for three months, had shown the Doctor something he had never let himself have, never let himself feel. He had tried so many times to lock those memories away, the pain, the joy, all mixed together so one was near indistinguishable from the other.

So very complicated, and he would have had it no other way. 

Lost in his memories, the Doctor traced his lips with his fingers. The memories so real, they still almost felt bruised after all this time. Memories of a hitched breath, a brush of fingers, the scraping of nails, of desperate need and want as they tried to bury themselves in each other. So far lost, they were actually found.

So much anger and fury. Vulnerability buried beneath strength. Tenderness rare and forgotten, swamped by emotions torn and raw, yet so much sweeter when it was found again.

Those three months that had near destroyed, yet saved him, all at once.

"Why did you find me Doctor? This would have been so much easier if you hadn't," Jack had whispered on the last night. 

The glow of the monitor above them had glinted off beads of sweat. The Doctor had traced his fingers along Jack's skin in random patterns, losing himself in the feel of that moisture beneath his fingers, the feel of Jack.

Jack's eyes had been drawn to the monitor, as they had so often since the Doctor had shown him the data he had downloaded from the Tescalator, the Doctor's death date, which he had been running from, but couldn't escape. 

They both knew it couldn't be avoided. It was a fixed point. There was nowhere to run, no way to hide from it. It hung in the air between them that last night. Destroying what had barely started.

Jack had turned from the monitor, mouth finding the Doctor's, drawing haggard moans from it as his hands worked lower. They had vented desire and anger, love and hate, not in words, but desperate touches, hard and fast, than languishing. They said goodbye with the glow of the Doctor's death hanging over them.

The next morning, Jack had left, and the Doctor went to face what he had been running from for near 200 years.

And then he had survived it. He had found a way, as he always did. Yet Jack was still not here.

The Doctor opened his eyes, looking out into the Nebula, wishing he could just drift forever, cold, unfeeling, like the dust around him, but he couldn't. He didn't even know if Jack knew he was alive. He had let them all think he was dead. It had been easier, harder, safer. He didn't know which anymore.

He knew he could try to find Jack, that maybe the Captain would still want him. Yet he had always been a coward. Jack had left, and no matter how often he told himself it had been because Jack couldn't bear to watch him die, some small part of him thought maybe he had just wanted to leave. That he was done with the Doctor he had waited so long for.

He was a coward, too inundated with fear to find out. 

No, Jack was better off without him, safer. They all were. The Doctor only broke those around him...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The sound of gun fire reverberated in the desert air, breaking the silence, breaking something inside of him. Jack watched from a distance. Not able to interfere, not able to leave, barely able to watch.

He had left the TARDIS, left the Doctor alone to face this. He hoped the Doctor had understood that he didn't want to watch the Doctor die, couldn't bear to. Yet in the end he hadn't been able not to, spending three weeks finding the part he needed to fix his vortex manipulator so that he could come back. 

Everything he thought he had forgotten, everything he thought he could no longer feel, had just been lost by the side of that lake. As the sound of the shots dissipated, everything that was good in the universe seemed to disappear with it. 

Every part of him wanted to run. Run away, or run to the Doctor's side. Jack didn't know which. Instead he stood mutely. Watching everything he had come to love and hate, die. He watched as those closest to the Doctor screamed in grief. The fiery red head who could only be Amy, the young man her Rory, and their daughter River that the Doctor had told him about. 

He envied and hated them that they were there by the Doctor's side, Amy holding him, when that was what Jack wanted to do. Hold him so close.

"Damn you..." he whispered, torn and shuddering, not knowing if he meant the Doctor or himself. 

Everything had played out as it was meant to. The Doctor had fallen, while those who loved him watched. 

Jack turned and walked away, barely making it twenty steps, before his knees gave way. Grief wrecking havoc through his body, but he kept it all in. He wanted to scream, he wanted to rip everything apart, but couldn't. Events had to play out as they should, with those on the shore line never knowing he was here. 

Instead, the hot desert sand soaked up his tears. Alone and grieving, the man who couldn't die, who watched everything he loved whither, and become lost to time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three months later, and the grief was still too raw. It ate at him, like a living thing that took pleasure in his pain. Twisting and cutting, deeper and deeper. He drank, he fought, he died. Then he came back again. Over and over. Never ending.

In his grief, Jack sought out the younger Doctor as he travelled with Rory and Amy, watching from a distance, shadowing them in their adventures. After Lake Silencio for the Ponds, before for the Doctor. 

Jack knew it was only making things worse, but couldn't stop. Every glimpse of the Doctor tore at him, keeping the wound open. He couldn't let them see him, couldn't be close to him, hold him, hit him, scream at him. Vent every bit of his rage at this man, who would in the future, tear his world apart. 

The anger, the hate, the love, wove itself around him until he could stand it no more. Then he would seek out death, for that small moment of peace, of darkness and nothingness, before he would come back. 

All those years he thought he had hated the Doctor, were nothing compared to this. Every time he saw the Doctor the hate would grow. He kept following, waiting for those glimpses, letting them feed the anger, hoping it would drive his grief away, destroy every last good memory he had. Only then, did he think it would stop hurting.

He would wait for the Doctor at the places he had told Jack about during their short time together aboard the TARDIS. Tales traded back and forth as they lay awake, neither really needing to sleep. Stories of people and places they had seen during all their long years. This time, it was outside a block of flats, where the Doctor was about to save a little boy, who wasn't really a boy.

Jack could still remember every scent and taste, as much as he tried to not to. 

They had spent most of those three months drifting between the stars. Jack had spent the first two weeks in frosty silence, not sure why he stayed, yet knowing full well at the same time. He had spent so long alone, he couldn't let himself accept what the Doctor was offering, so angry that the Doctor had found him only to say goodbye. 

After that first kiss, Jack barely spoke, both circling each other as they worked at the console, flying to no destination, just moving, drifting, denying the inevitable. The Doctor however did speak, a constant flow of words, manic and irrepressible as always, full of timey wimey's and spacey wacey's, and like a triangle but not a triangle. Every word breaking down Jack's defences, reminding him of why he had spent so long waiting for this man. This impossible man.

That first time, they had been beneath the console, working mostly in silent tandem, well Jack's silence, while the Doctor talked, to both him and the TARDIS. Jack had tried so hard to hold onto his hate, to remember that the Doctor had left him, so many times, and would again. 

The Doctor had tried to tell him how to fix the flux capacitor, and Jack had snapped.

"I know how to fix a damn flux capacitor. I've been around for awhile, or did you forget? You're good at that."

It had been the longest sentence he had said since that first night. Once the words started they wouldn't stop. Everything he had held inside came rushing out, all the anger, desire, a flood of words that quickly turned into more.

Jack had shoved the Doctor back against a beam. They were back to where they had been that first night, before Jack had pulled away. Only this time Jack didn't turn away. He pushed into the Doctor, the kiss all teeth and tongue, deep and hard. Hands fisted in shirts and hair. Breaths mingling as they barely took the time to pull apart, sucking the air from each other as if there were none left anywhere else.

It was desperate, full of anger, and over before it had really started, both finding release from the hard grind, the friction of flesh on clothing and emotional conflict. Jack sagging against the Doctor after, heads leant together. That brief moment saying all the things they never could. 

It had ended so soon, Jack walking up the stairs, leaving the Doctor, for once lost for words, and leaning against the beam as if nothing else could keep him on his feet. The following months passed all too quickly, before it was over.

Jack tried to shake the memories, filled with nothing more than pain now. The moment of nostalgia had distracted him from where he was. The Doctor, Amy and Rory were walking down the street towards him.

Cursing under his breath he ducked down an alley way. Closing his eyes and hoping he hadn't been seen, he held his breath and waited a minute before looking around the corner.

The others were in the TARDIS, but he could still see the Doctor, looking straight at him. 

Jack turned and walked away. He walked away from the one person he wanted. His loss of concentration had nearly disrupted their timeline. Letting the Doctor see him now, wasn't worth the risk of those three months never happening. 

He kept walking, not looking back once, in order to preserve their future, his past, and hating the Doctor more than he ever had.

Jack stayed on earth, and spent the next two years trying to convince himself the Doctor had never existed, trying to convince himself that the hate wasn't love, without success.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Christmas, 2013, and Jack found himself walking the streets of Leadworth. He knew it was stupid, but he had settled here, close to the Ponds, or the Williams. Even as he tried to forget the Doctor, he wasn't able to let go, somehow feeling closer to him, by being in the same city as his best friends.

He had walked past their house the last two Christmas's, watched them laugh and go on with their lives. Jack stood across the street, out of sight. By some stupid twist of fate, some cosmic joke by the universe, he was there as the Doctor walked to their front door. He was there to hear Amy, and then Rory, say they knew he wasn't dead.

Jack couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think. How? He had watched the Doctor die, had spent the last two years mourning him.

Amy and Rory had known, and he didn't. 

Jack went numb, every emotion, everything he had ever felt, dying all over again.

He waited, alone in the dark for hours, until morning, when the Doctor came back out, followed by Amy and Rory.

Jack watched as the Doctor saw him, saw the look of surprise. He waited until the Doctor was two steps away, so very close, after all this time. Close enough to touch, to hold, to say those three words they had never uttered to each other.

"I never want to see you again. I never want to think of you again. You died at that lake. You can stay dead. You selfish, heartless bastard," Jack said coldly instead.

Jack turned and walked away, he didn't look back, refused to hear the Doctor calling after him. His heart colder than it ever had been.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Doctor, what was that about? And don't tell me nothing," Amy asked, watching with complete confusion as the man in an old army coat walk away.

"It was everything...but it's gone... I destroyed it," the Doctor replied quietly, looking more broken than she had ever seen.

Amy followed him into the TARDIS. He tried to smile for her, but it was distant, haunted. She grabbed Rory, leading him off down the corridor to see if their old room was still there, but really to give the Doctor some space. She looked back to see him leaning with both hands on the console, head bowed, looking as though he could barely stand. 

She had no idea what had just happened, but felt as though they had lost the Doctor, after they had only just gotten him back...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Doctor smiled and danced around the console like he was mass of energy that could never find release. He took them places, showed them the vastness of space and time. He laughed, he talked in techno babble that went over both Rory and Amy's head. Yet it was all an act.

She knew it was. Rory knew it was. Yet they never spoke of it. He never spoke of it. Not in words at least. It was there in those rare quiet moments, in the smile that rarely reached his eyes, in the gentle touch as he caressed the console, like he was looking for something in the cold metal that wasn't there anymore.

There had always been a sadness to him, but this was different, rawer, harsher, so much closer to the surface, yet deeper as well.

After the first week, Amy had asked the TARDIS who that man in the World War 2 coat had been. She hadn't really expected an answer, yet the TARDIS gave it to her, flashing a picture on the monitor. Captain Jack Harkness. Former Time Agent. Torchwood. Immortal.

A man who had somehow broken her Doctor.

Amy and Rory hadn't planned to stay long, just one more adventure, and then another, and another, not wanting to leave the Doctor alone. It took her awhile to notice, a flash of billowing coat here, a face in a crowd there, never more than a glance. So often on their travels, the TARDIS seemed to be taking them to Captain Jack, yet they never met him. He was just there, a distant figure, like a ghost of something lost.

Four months in, she finally asked.

"Who is Captain Jack?"

The Doctor smiled, that sad smile, that broken smile. "A friend, maybe more. I told you a long time ago to put aside your faith in me. Jack could tell you why you should have listened. "

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jack was waiting for a ship at a space port in the Proxima 9 system. The port was within a biosphere in the depths of space, complete with manufactured beaches and wildlife, one of those impossible creations of humans that the Doctor loved so much. He was about to head to the nearest bar to pass the time until his shuttle arrived when he heard the TARDIS. He turned to watch it materialise across the busy plaza, no longer surprised to see it.

It had been over three hundred years since he learnt the Doctor was still alive. Jack had used the manipulator one last time to come back to his own time, the 51st century, after spending those three centuries wandering through time. 

The pain had dulled to something more bearable, still there, but it was just a part of him now, no longer overwhelming, consuming.

Jack watched as Amy and Rory left the TARDIS, laughing, hand in hand. Amy called something back over her shoulder, before pulling Rory along with her, off to explore. Jack smiled; they were so full of life, so very human. He had never met them, but was glad they were there, with the Doctor, as they should be.

He waited until Amy and Rory were out of sight. For so long he had walked away every time he saw the TARDIS appear, as it followed him through time, the sight of that blue box threatening to drown him in pain, in betrayal, in the thought of what could have been. Jack didn't turn away this time.

He walked to the doors, not even once considering that it wouldn't let him in. The door opened and he stepped through.

The Doctor had his head under the console, muttering to himself, or more likely the TARDIS, as he worked. Jack leaned back against the door frame and listened, a slow smile forming. His thoughts had been centred on the Doctor for so long, but here, in the TARDIS, Jack let himself feel just how utterly he had missed him.

"Okay, Okay," the Doctor said soothingly, as sparks flew. "Almost done old girl."

"Could you use a hand?" Jack asked, laughing quietly as the Doctor hit his head, startled.

The Doctor stood, looking across the console to Jack as he walked up the stairs, a mass of emotions playing across that impossible face. 

"Jack..." 

Jack took his coat off and tossed it on the console. He knelt down next to the still stunned Doctor, looking at what he had been working on. 

"Looks like the interactive gyro conductor scope is out of alignment," he said, looking up at the Doctor.

"Navigations gone wonky," the Doctor said, obviously trying to collect himself.

Jack reached a hand up. "Got a screw driver?"

The Doctor's lips tilted ever so slightly in a smile, all watery and uncertain, but it made something inside of Jack clench, his own pain temporarily put aside at the regret and sorrowfulness he saw behind that smile.

"Jack, I'm..."

"It's ok. Screwdriver?" Jack asked again wiggling his fingers impatiently.

The Doctor handed him the sonic screwdriver, their hands lingering longer than was necessary.

The Doctor knelt down next to Jack, leaning in to push aside wiring so that Jack could access the problematic scope. Jack flicked a setting on the sonic and activated it, brow crinkling as he tried to find just the right spot.

"Ha, there we go," Jack said, swearing the old girl almost sighed in gratification.

"Jack, I'm sorry."

"I think we both are," Jack replied without any reproach.

Jack had imagined what this moment would be like a thousand times. Variations of venting all his anger, of striking out, wanting to physically hurt him, as the Doctor had hurt him, bloodying his knuckles against that face, that impossible face that he saw whenever he closed his eyes, of taking him, hard, and angry against the console now above them. 

Instead he reached his hand up to gently cup that face, running his thumb across the Doctor's cheek bone. The Doctor closed his eyes, leaning into the touch.

Jack leaned forward, lips gently brushing lips. Jack trembled at the touch, so filled with pain, regret, and hope he thought neither dared feel.

He moved his other hand behind the Doctor's neck, pulling him closer, tangling fingers in soft hair. Lips moved gently, lingering, parting slightly, inviting. Jack felt the Doctor's tongue move against his own, almost undoing him with the slightest touch. 

Jack pulled back slightly. Lips parting by only the barest slither, breathes mingling, as he leant their foreheads together. 

"I will be here for you, always," Jack whispered. 

He knew the Doctor wasn't ready. All the pain and anger that had been between them, that he knew the Doctor blamed himself for, though blame had been on both sides. It would take time, and he would give his Timelord just that. 

They remained there, soaking up each other, breathing each other in, for a long, drawn out, exquisite moment that couldn't last forever. Jack raised his lips to the Doctor's forehead, brushing a kiss across the skin.

"Always," he whispered, before letting go.

Jack walked out. Leaving so much of himself behind in the TARDIS, knowing some day, he would be back for it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Doctor watched as Jack walked out of the TARDIS. He stared at the closed doors for a long while, to numb to think, to understand why he wasn't stopping him.

The Doctor turned back to the console, his eyes falling on the coat slung on one of the levers. Jack's coat, which he had worn all these years, a remnant of his mortal life. The Doctor walked over and ran his fingers over the material, closing his eyes as he did, knowing that it had been left behind on purpose.

Familiar guilt settled over the Doctor, that he couldn't let go. Jack had resigned himself to his fate, accepted it. Accepted all the long years he would face, all the deaths and losses. 

The Doctor wondered how long it would be until he could accept that fate. If he could ever let himself accept what they could have, did have. He smiled sadly, Captain Jack Harkness, a paradox he thought he would never understand...but maybe, one day, with all of space and time open to him, he could lose himself trying.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Amy finally met Captain Jack Harkness at a space port in the year 5121.

The Doctor was in the TARDIS, tinkering, or whatever he did when they weren't there, and Rory was off taking photos of some sort of alien starfish or something. She watched from a walkway suspended above the rocky shore below, waving to Rory when he looked up.

She was wandering down the walkway, watching as ships came and went overhead, thinking it was busier than Heathrow, when she saw him. 

"Captain Jack," she said, as she leant on the railing next to him. "You know I keep seeing you everywhere."

Jack looked her over, raising an eyebrow. "You know, I've got a cure for that."

"Sorry, married. That cure isn't going to work on me."

"That's ok, kind of have a thing for Romans, sure we could work something out."

Amy laughed, somehow not surprised that he knew who she was. "You've got a thing for Timelords too."

Jacks expression closed over slightly, before he bowed his head, chuckling to himself. "Don't we all? He told you about me then?"

"Sort of. You know how hard it is to get him to talk," Amy joked.

Jack laughed, "I think he talks his enemies to death more than anything else."

"He didn't really have to say much," Amy said quietly. "He's so old, carries so much with him. But you, he has you wrapped so tight around him...do you think he even realises that he keeps following you? How many places have we turned up, and you've been there? Out of sight. He thinks he's so clever, off seeing the universe, yet he's too stupid, too stubborn to go the one place he wants."

They both watched as a transport shuttle landed.

"That's my ride," Jack said, turning to leave.

"Why do you keep running Jack?" Amy called after him.

Jack stopped, slowly turning back to her.

"I think I stopped running a long time ago, maybe I was never running, just waiting for him to catch up." Jack looked out over the shore below. "You want to know if he realised I was there, on all those planets, in all those places? Of course he did. He's the Doctor. You think he is old? He has lived for what? 1,100, 1,200 years? I've lived for over five thousand, and I will keep on living. I don't even know if there will be an end. If I will still be here alone, in the cold, dark, terrifying space that is all that's left is when time ends. I don't know if I will have to wait until time itself unravels to find my release. I don't know, and neither does he. I'm a paradox...a fixed point in time. I can't exist yet always exist...an impossibility. "

"No wonder he loves you then," Amy said. 

She had thought she would be angry, that she would hate Jack for leaving the Doctor so broken. Yet all she felt was sadness. This man, whoever he was, whatever he had shared with the Doctor, was just as broken without him. 

"He's an idiot," Jack said quietly, tenderly.

"Oh, no doubting that."

"He left me stranded on that satellite all those years ago, and I spent over a hundred years waiting, waiting for him to tell me what had happened, what I was. I've had so many lives, more death than I could ever count, yet there has always been one constant, one aching constant I can't let go. It took him a couple of thousand years to find me again, and even then it was just to say goodbye and let me think he was dead."

"Like you said, he's an idiot," Amy said with a shrug.

"I sometimes think I hate him."

"No you don't"

Jack smiled, removing the wristband he wore. "It'd be easier if I did," he said as he tossed the vortex manipulator to her.

"Tell him, when he's ready to stop running, to come find me. I'll wait. I'll always wait, even if it's until the end of time," Jack said, smiling as he backed away towards the transport, the sound of the engines almost drowning out his last words as he boarded. "Oh, and tell him he's an idiot, but he's my idiot."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jack smiled, and saluted casually to Amy as the airlock closed, blocking her from view. I'll wait. I'll always wait, even if it's until the end of time...

The smile faltered, wondering just how true those words would be. Jack knew that he would never stop waiting, he just didn't know if the Doctor would ever stop running...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


End file.
